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Robotics Research pp 95–112Cite as

Aggressive Maneuver Regulation of a Quadrotor UAV

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Part of the book series: Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics ((STAR,volume 114))

Abstract

In this paper we design a nonlinear controller for aggressive maneuvering of a quadrotor. We take a maneuver regulation perspective. Differently from the classical trajectory tracking approach, maneuver regulation does not require following a timed reference state, but a geometric “path” with a velocity (and possibly orientation) profile assigned on it. The proposed controller relies on three main ideas. Given a desired maneuver, i.e., a set of state trajectories equivalent under time translations, the system dynamics is decomposed into dynamics longitudinal and transverse to the maneuver. A space-dependent version of the transverse dynamics is derived, by using the longitudinal state, i.e., the arc-length of the path, as an independent variable. Then the controller is obtained as a function of the arc-length consisting of two terms: a feedforward term, being the nominal input to apply when on the path at the current arc-length, and a feedback term exponentially stabilizing the state-dependent transverse dynamics. Numerical computations are presented to prove the effectiveness of the proposed strategy. The controller performances are tested in presence of uncertainty of the model parameters and input noise and saturations. The controller is also tested in a realistic simulation environment validated against an experimental test-bed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This parametrization of R, largely used in the literature, has a singularity when the pitch angle reaches \(\pi /2\). However, the proposed techniques can be developed for any other parametrization. Thus, given the desired maneuver, the best suited parametrization can be used to avoid singularities.

  2. 2.

    www.mikrokopter.de.

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Acknowledgments

The work of G. Notarstefano and S. Spedicato is partially supported by the project SOCIAL-ROBOTS under the program “5 per mille per la ricerca”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Engineering, Università del Salento, Via per Monteroni, 73100, Lecce, Italy

    Sara Spedicato & Giuseppe Notarstefano

  2. Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Spemannstraße 38, 72076, Tubingen, Germany

    Heinrich H. Bülthoff & Antonio Franchi

Authors
  1. Sara Spedicato
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  2. Giuseppe Notarstefano
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  3. Heinrich H. Bülthoff
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  4. Antonio Franchi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sara Spedicato .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Creative Informatics, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Masayuki Inaba

  2. School of Electrical Engineering and Com, Queensland Univ of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Peter Corke

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Spedicato, S., Notarstefano, G., Bülthoff, H.H., Franchi, A. (2016). Aggressive Maneuver Regulation of a Quadrotor UAV. In: Inaba, M., Corke, P. (eds) Robotics Research. Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics, vol 114. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28872-7_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28872-7_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28872-7

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